The Greatest

Without José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva,
Brazil would not exist in its current form.
He was aware of the disintegration of the Spanish America,
which split into eight independent countries between 1810 and 1830.

This article is in commemoration of Brazil's 500th anniversary. (Brazil's actual
birthday date is April 22, 2000)

Most well educated Brazilians know that José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva is the
"Patriarch of Independence" of Brazil. He is one of the greatest statesman in
world history, but he is unknown to the American public.

Most people don't know enough of our Brazilian history and its details to appreciate
the reasons why José Bonifácio (the founding father of Brazil) is considered the most
important figure in Brazilian history. There is no other person in Brazilian history who
comes close to José Bonifácio in the impact that he had on the history of the country.

To demonstrate José Bonifácio's importance to the history of Brazil, we can say that
José Bonifácio was responsible for the unification of Brazil in 1822. It was José
Bonifácio's statesmanship ability that united the country which we call Brazil. The
country that he united in 1822 is almost the same size as the country that we have today.
Since 1822 Brazil gained just a little and lost a little territory.

There was no unity in Brazil in 1822 or before 1822. The north of Brazil had better
communications with Europe than with Rio de Janeiro. He unified a very large country with
his exceptional political savvy and statesmanship skills, with a small army, with a small
navy and with almost no bloodshed.

The Outstanding Prime Minister

If José Bonifácio had made a single mistake during that very delicate turning point
in Brazilian history, the result would have been disastrous for Brazil. If they had to
fight multiple rebellions for independence from the north to the south of Brazil then
everything could have gotten out of control and their small army and navy would not have a
single chance to keep the new nation together (Brazil was too large to be controlled with
this small army and navy with the communication and transportation systems available in
Brazil in 1822). If that had happened the result would have been disastrous, and Brazil
would have been split into five or six independent countries at that point.

In 1621, Maranhão became a separate colony of Portugal, because it was easier to
maintain communications from Maranhão in the north of Brazil with Lisbon, in Portugal,
than with the capital of Brazil, São Salvador, in the Captaincy of Bahia. The new colony
of Portugal included most of the Captaincies north and west of Cabo São Roque, and
included parts of Ceará, Piauí, Maranhão, Pará and Amazonas. This colony was never
prosperous.

In 1822 at the time of the Brazilian independence from Portugal, the north of Brazil
was precariously connected to the south. The king of Portugal preferred to keep the
Captaincies (States) isolated and ignorant of one another. Royal edicts of 1614 and 1620
prohibited a governor-general from one Captaincy to visit another Captaincy in Brazil
without permission from Portugal.

To put things in the right perspective let's review some facts and some other events
which were happening around the 1820's. The United States in the 1820's was a country half
of today's size. The United States consisted of its thirteen original states. It had also
acquired a new piece of land by the Treaty of Versailles in 1783, the Louisiana Territory
from France in 1803 and Florida in 1819 from Spain. Even if we added the newly purchased
lands to the United States, the U.S. still was half of the size of Brazil in 1822, the
time of Brazilian independence.

The United States had to fight an independence war in 1776 to achieve the independence
of its thirteen original states. U.S. independence was achieved with bloodshed and
suffering for American colonists. By contrast, Brazilian independence was achieved with
very little bloodshed because of José Bonifácio's statesmanship abilities. Without José
Bonifácio in its history, the country Brazil in its current form would not exist today.

José Bonifácio was aware of the disintegration of the Spanish empire in the Americas.
Spanish America disintegrated into eight separate and independent countries during the
period 1810 to 1830. Spanish America broke up into various republics and their
independence was as follows: Paraguay (1811), Argentina (1816), Chile (1818), Colombia
(1819), Ecuador (1822), Peru (1824), Bolivia (1825), and Venezuela (1830). The
independence of these countries from Spain was accomplished with a twenty-year civil war
in that region of South America and split Spanish America into eight independent
republics. Uruguay got its independence in 1828 from Brazil.

Dom Pedro I lost the Cisplatine Provincethe country called Uruguay todayin
a disastrous war with Argentina in 1828. If Dom Pedro I had kept José Bonifácio as his
Prime Minister in the late 1820's, instead of sending him into exile, most likely the
country Uruguay still would be part of Brazil today.

We can summarize José Bonifácio's importance to Brazilian history as follows: Without
José Bonifácio's influence on Brazilian history, we would have instead four or five
independent countries in South America where Brazil is located, and we would not be
commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Brazilian nation. Without José Bonifácio in
its history, the country Brazil in its current form would not exist today.

The major reason to honor José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva is the fact that
Brazilians owe him the country which we call Brazil today. The country itself was José
Bonifácio's legacy to future Brazilian generations.

The impact, which José Bonifácio had as the architect of Brazilian independence did
not happen by chance, but as a result of his life-long hard work and experience. He had
all the credentials and knowledge which he had acquired in Europe during the thirty six
years in which he lived there, before returning to Brazil in 1819 to do a masterful job in
directing Brazil in its independence process.

When Prince Dom Pedro asked José Bonifácio to be his Prime Minister in 1822, the
Prince Regent was aware that he could not find a more qualified person for that job in
Brazil. José Bonifácio told the Prince Regent that he would accept the position only
when allowed to impose his unlimited authority. Dom Pedro did not hesitate. He armed José
Bonifácio with the highest level of authority possible. The investiture of José
Bonifácio carried with it the most extensive powers that any minister had in the history
of the imperial or republican Brazil.

The World in the Early 1800's

To help put things in the right perspective I want to make two important points. First,
the journalist/historian James Burke in his television series about world history called Connections
gave the viewer some interesting information. In one of the episodes he mentioned that
most people who lived up to the early 1800's spent their entire lives never traveling
farther than a 20 mile radius from the place where they were born. In other words, most
people lived in a small and limited world.

Second, in 1822, the Brazilian population was estimated to be around 4.4 million
people. The white population was around 2.0 million people, and only about 10 percent of
them were literate or semi-literate. Very few people had an advanced education.

The percentage of people literate or semi-literate in Brazil improved a little bit by
1890. The census of 1890 in Brazil shows that out of a total population of 14 million
people only 14.8 % were literate or semi-literate.

These points are important because they describe the world in which José Bonifácio
was living from 1780 to 1838, where most people lived in this very limited world of 20
miles radius, and the great majority of people were illiterate or semi-literate.

José Bonifácio's Education

José Bonifácio was an extraordinary human being. He had attended some of the best
universities of his time; he studied mathematics, philosophy, astronomy and law. He
received his philosophy degree in 1787 and his law degree in 1788. Later he studied and
did research in the top universities in France, Germany and Scandinavia. He traveled
extensively throughout Europe from 1789 through 1800.

He met a large number of the best scientists of his day, including Fourcroy, Vauquelin,
Priestley, Lavoisier and many others. He visited many of the well-known universities and
scientific research centers of Europe of his day.

José Bonifácio was fluent in six languages (he was able to write and read):
Portuguese, English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. He understood 11 languages in
total, and he also had complete command of Greek and Latin.

He traveled extensively throughout Europe and witnessed first hand how different places
and different people were organized and how their society operated. He was in Paris in the
period 1790 through 1792, and he was very interested in the debates of the Convention in
Paris. He stayed in Paris until the proclamation of the French Republic in September 1792.
During this period he frequented a very exclusive group of powerful thinkers; some of them
had influenced and played a major role in the French Revolution and others were
authorities in their fields of specialization.

The Portugal Period: 1800-1819

After he returned to Portugal in 1800, he was appointed to many positions of
responsibility by the Portuguese government. He also participated in the war effort to
defend Portugal from three French invasions from 1808 to 1812. José Bonifácio left
Portugal with his family on August 19, 1819 to return to Brazil. He was 56 and 1/2 years
old, considered an advanced age in 1819, and he had been living out of Brazil for 36
years.

When he arrived in Brazil in early November 1819, he was a respected and well-known
scientist in the top scientific research centers of Europe of his day. He came back to
Brazil to retire and to enjoy his remaining days doing scientific research and writing,
hardly knowing that the biggest accomplishments of his life and what would immortalize him
in world history were still ahead of him.

The greatest accomplishment of Dom Pedro's life (the Prince Regent) in regard to
Brazil, was to appoint José Bonifácio his Prime Minister, and not hesitating in arming
José Bonifácio with unlimited authority to do his job.

The Independence Process

The Prince Regent, and later Emperor, on various occasions made a point of showing in
public the high regard that he had for his Prime Minister by handing him in official
ceremonies the bastion of mordomo-mor, symbol of uncontested prestige. This set the
stage for José Bonifácio to assume his Prime Minister position. which would enable him
to do a masterful job that culminated with the independence of Brazil from Portugal.

To this day no one has accomplished so much in Brazilian history as José Bonifácio,
and his accomplishments were done in a very short period of time in the three years from
1821 to 1823. In those three years José Bonifácio provoked the most outstanding hatred
that any politician tasted in Brazil. During this period he could count on support only
from a few trusted friends and from his other two brothers Martim Francisco and Antônio
Carlos. They were instrumental and also played important supporting roles in the
independence of Brazil.

There was a hatred of the Portuguese as they were a dominant force in Rio de Janeiro.
There was also a hatred of various groups of Brazilians. These groups of Brazilians could
not see in José Bonifácio's political actions the defense of national unity and
territorial integrity.

José Bonifácio had a clear vision, objective and realistic, of the functions of a
modern State. In his writings and personal correspondence, in most documents, in
government decrees, and in official and diplomatic correspondence to other governments, we
can see that he understood the social and economic problems of his day. He also had a
profound understanding of the political issues and of what could be realistically done.

His goal was to guide Brazil to a smoother transition than the one that he had seen in
France during the French Revolution. He also was aware of the current anarchy present in
the new nations that were getting their independence from the Spanish Empire, as was the
case in Argentina.

In his writings, correspondence, government documents and government decrees we can see
that José Bonifácio and his brother Martim Francisco had an excellent grasp of economic
theory and that their thoughts were way ahead of their time in that subject.

The liberal reforms that José Bonifácio was putting in place to completely
restructure, not only the economic but also the political and social life in Brazil,
created a momentum to form an incredible coalition of Portuguese and Brazilian land and
slave owners. This powerful coalition was so strong that eventually they forced José
Bonifácio out of power.

The Critical Period

There was a critical nine-month period from March 1822 to December 1822 in which José
Bonifácio almost in a despotic fashion issued decree after decree establishing the
foundations, which would give the social, political and economic structure for the new
nation. José Bonifácio's actions were arrogant, inflexible, firm, and irreconcilable
with dissident groups, but at the same time they were compatible with the people and the
nation whose interests he was defending.

When José Bonifácio participated in the provisory government of São Paulo, he
prepared a document that was signed by the members of the provisory government on October
9, 1821 called "Lembranças e Apontamentos". This document might be the most
important document in the history of reforms in Brazil. The document provided a complete
master plan for the new nation and covered in detail all the necessary building blocks of
social, political and economic life.

José Bonifácio's major accomplishment in Brazil was the consolidation of independence
with national sovereignty, political unity and territorial integrity.

The Andrada Brothers

When historians refer to "The Andrada Brothers" they are referring to the
three brothers, as follows:

In 1995, I wrote two articles about José Bonifácio and I posted them in a newsgroup
about Brazil. I received many emails in reply to the postings, most of them asking further
questions about the Andrada brothers. But some of the emails received from the readers
were critical of them, mentioning that the Andrada brothers were considered radical in
their time.

Were the Andrada brothers radical?

A radical in this context would be a person who favors fundamental or extreme change,
favoring basic change in the social or economic structure of a country. Can the Andrada
brothers be considered radical when we look back and analyze their involvement in the
history of Brazil? The answer is yes. There is no question that they were radical. Let's
analyze why, in order of events from 1817 to 1840.

Antônio Carlos was working in Olinda, Pernambuco Province, as a magistrate when a
republican and mason revolution broke out in that province in 1817. He was asked to join
the leadership of that revolution. He even sent a letter to José Bonifácio in Portugal
dated April 14, 1817 describing what was happening. In that letter he mentioned how well
the revolution had turned out.

A short time later José Bonifácio (in Portugal) found out that the revolution in
Pernambuco had been a disaster for the revolutionists. Most of the leaders of that
revolution had been hanged. The only reason they spared Antônio Carlos' life was because
they knew he was a brother of José Bonifácio. (The revolution in Pernambuco was crushed
by the Portuguese and lasted only 75 days.)

Antônio Carlos spent four years in prison for participating in that revolution. When
José Bonifácio returned to Brazil at the end of 1819, his brother Antônio Carlos was
still in prison in the province of Bahia.

José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva was the architect of Brazilian independence; that
is why he is known as "The Patriarch of Independence." He guided Brazil through
its independence process from 1821 to 1823. During this period José Bonifácio was the
Prime Minister and his brother Martim Francisco was the Finance Minister of Brazil.

The First Brazilian Constitution

The three "Andrada brothers" continued participating in the Constituent
Assembly after José Bonifácio and Martim Francisco resigned from their government
positions. Antônio Carlos was a representative of São Paulo. José Bonifácio had been
elected Deputado from São Paulo and Martim Francisco had been elected Deputado
from Rio de Janeiro.

They needed a leader to direct the Constituent Assembly. José Bonifácio knew that he
was not a great orator. He also had some other drawbacks, as he did not worry about being
amiable or courteous. Any one could see when he was angry, and he had a certain arrogant
manner. Martim Francisco was a good orator but his personality was a carbon copy of José
Bonifácio's and he also projected that arrogant manner.

Antônio Carlos was a great orator; as a matter of fact he was considered the greatest
orator in Brazil in his generation (1817 to 1845). Later, José Bonifácio de Andrada e
Silva (The Younger), son of Martim Francisco and grandson of the Patriarch also was
considered the greatest orator of his generation (1850 to 1886).

Antônio Carlos took the leadership position to lead and to guide the proceedings of
the process of framing the first Brazilian Constitution. José Bonifácio used his
brothers to make his points. He had full confidence in the abilities of his brothers to
get his points across, but he was always in the background giving support to them.

Out of the almost one hundred representatives of the States in the Constituent
Assembly, besides the three Andrada brothers, only three or four people made contributions
to the framing of the Constitution.

The Andrada brothers started attacking the administration through their editorials in
their newspaper O Tamoio. They were right in their attacks. What the Portuguese
were doing arose suspicion that they wanted to reunite Brazil with Portugal. José
Bonifácio and Martim Francisco, belonging to the opposition party, made constant attacks
on the cabinet of ministers, causing them considerable embarrassment.

The fight got so heated that the members of the Constituent Assembly were worried that
their existence was in jeopardy. The Emperor was so angry with the Andradas that he
decided to dissolve the Constituent Assembly or to expel the Andradas from the Constituent
Assembly. The Emperor watched the three Andrada brothers continue to dominate the
situation. Finally he got his horse and, followed by a group of horsemen, went to the
Constituent Assembly.

The forces surrounded the Constituent Assembly building and pointed their artillery at
the door of the building, and Brigadier Moraes passed on to the Constituent Assembly the
Emperors' order for their dissolution. Antônio Carlos and Martim Francisco were held
prisoners as soon as they left the building.

On November 13, 1823 a new group started deliberating the Constitution; at that point
most of the articles of the Constitution had been decided and they were in the process of
being submitted to the Municipal Chambers of the States for review. Dom Pedro told them to
finalize the Constitution by December 13, 1823. This Constitution was to be effective as
of December 13, 1823 and the swearing ceremony would be done on March 25, 1824.

The port of Rio de Janeiro was reopened on November 24, 1823 as soon as the ship
"Lucônia" left Brazil with the prisoners. When José Bonifácio, Martim
Francisco, and Antônio Carlos went down in the ship, they had a nice surprise. Their
families were waiting for them to go with them into exile.

In the beginning of 1828, Martim Francisco and Antônio Carlos returned to Brazil with
their families. They returned to defend themselves, including José Bonifácio, against
all of the charges brought forth by the government. José Bonifácio stayed in France with
his wife.

As soon as they arrived in Rio de Janeiro they presented themselves to the authorities
who imprisoned them immediately in the prison in the Ilha das Cobras. They prepared their
defense and they destroyed their adversaries in court. They got a unanimous absolution on
September 6, 1828. Their names were cleared and vindicated.

Political Careers Resumed

When Martim Francisco was in prison he was invited to take a position as a government
Minister. He did not accept the offer and told them that first he had to get justice and
prove his innocence. Also, when he was in prison in 1828 he was elected Deputado
for the Minas Gerais province. Later in 1838, Martim Francisco was elected Deputado
for the São Paulo province. Antônio Carlos also was elected Deputado when he
returned from exile in 1828, and he resumed his political career in Brazil.

After the Andradas had been vindicated in Brazil, José Bonifácio stayed one more year
in France before he returned to Brazil. José Bonifácio left Bordeaux at the end of May
1829 to return to Rio de Janeiro. He arrived in Brazil on July 23, 1829. When José
Bonifácio was in exile, the province of Bahia elected him Deputado to represent
them in Congress. José Bonifácio returned to Congress as a Bahia representative only on
June 22, 1831.

After José Bonifácio's death in 1838, his brothers Martim Francisco and Antônio
Carlos continued their political careers. The political situation was a mess in Brazil in
April 1840. The Andrada brothers and other liberal leaders organized a secret club to
promote the emancipation of Dom Pedro II. The Andradas began to organize public
demonstrations in support of the emancipation of Dom Pedro II, and engaged in debate using
the press to get further public support.

Disregarding the pleas from the leader of the government for postponement, a joint
session of Congress invested Dom Pedro with imperial authority on July 23, 1840. The young
Prince was fourteen years old. He took the oath to uphold the Constitution and from then
on he was Emperor Pedro II.

Unlike his father, Dom Pedro II had been born and educated in Brazil. His tutors,
starting with José Bonifácio, exposed him to heavy doses of enlightenment thought.
During his later years in power some political commentators referred to Dom Pedro II's
government as the best republican government in the Americas.

When the Emperor Dom Pedro II formed his first cabinet of ministers in 1840, he
rewarded the Andrada brothers by appointing Antônio Carlos as the Prime Minister, and
Martim Francisco as the Finance Minister.

A fact, which many well-educated Brazilians don't know, is that Martim Francisco
Ribeiro de Andrada was entrusted with the job of drafting the Declaration of Independence
of Brazil. After reviewing the detail of the document with José Bonifácio, the document
was immediately sent to Prince Dom Pedro. In the United States, Thomas Jefferson is the
author of the document The Declaration of Independence of the United States. In Brazil,
Martim Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada is the author of the document The Declaration of
Independence of Brazil.

Fighting Slavery and Landowners

Why was the economic establishment of his time so afraid of José Bonifácio? The basis
of the Brazilian economy was agriculture and mining, which were performed by slave labor.
As a matter of fact in Brazil they used slave labor for everything including manufacturing
(a reason which José Bonifácio highlighted; he pointed out that this was one of the
major reasons for the Brazilian low productivity in that sector), as compared with the
United States where slave labor was used mostly in agriculture.

José Bonifácio was against slavery, and he wanted to free the slaves. He was also in
favor of major agrarian reform. These two issues which José Bonifácio was fighting for
so hard would have shaken the Brazilian economy of his time to its foundations. If he was
able to end slavery and get his agrarian reform proposal passed, the result would have
been that the Brazilian economy would have to go through a major restructuring. These
would have been radical changes to the structure of the Brazilian economy of his time and
these changes made everyone involved very worried including the landowners, slave owners,
and slave traders, and these were a very powerful groups of people of his day.

Ricardo C. Amaral, the author, was born in the city of São Paulo,
Brazil. He attended Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey, USA, where he
received a BA degree in Economics and later an MBA degree in Finance. He continued his
Academic studies towards a PhD degree in Economics at Fordham University, but then elected
to immerse himself totally into a professional corporate career.

Ricardo Amaral is among a very few remaining living descendants of both
José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva and his brother Martim Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada,
the founding fathers of Brazil. You can contact the author at the following address:
Ricardo C. Amaral
P.O. Box 110302
Nutley, New Jersey 07110
Email address: amaral@alpha.fdu.edu